OMG, the NY Post/Karol Markowicz comparison of Pete Hegseth to Brett Kavanaugh is completely wrong, and now Pete Hegseth goes there to defend himself

 Where else? but in The Wall Street Journal here:

Like veterans returning from any war, we drank beers to manage the reality of what we had faced. But we never did anything improper, and we treated everyone with respect.

 

CA-13 was decided for the Democrat overnight, so the final US House outcome is GOP 220, Dems 215

 CA-13 flipped Republican in this election, as did CA-27 and CA-45.

Republicans flipped no seats in California, and nationally Democrats picked up one seat on net and the GOP lost one on net.

Republicans have the same razor thin US House majority in the next Congress that they have now.

Bye Bye Red Wave.

DeSantis is far and away better for DOD than Pete Hegseth, but it would be a step down for the governor, and a minefield which could blow up his chances for 2028, if he still has any

 Trump Mulls Replacing Pete Hegseth With Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

Beside all that, Trump is just poaching again. 

Florida still needs Ron DeSantis, especially to appoint the replacement for the already poached Senator Marco Rubio. One bad decision leads to another.

Can't Trump find anyone else? Isn't this just more evidence of how few quality people find serving in this lame duck presidency an attractive prospect?

Ron DeSantis should also think long and hard about having to defend everything Trump for four years, quite apart from defending the United States, if he's still serious about a 2028 run. He ran against Trump in the primaries, after all, for reasons.

I think this story is more of a trial balloon, an advertisement: "Hey out there! Anyone interested in the job? Help! I gotta get rid of Pete! Please step up!"

For everything else there's MasterCard

 Newsweek falls for X shitposter Parik Patel posing as Trump appointee Kash Patel's dad lol.

 

Kevin Dowd: close the border, eliminate regulations, end the war on fossil fuels, cancel electric vehicle mandates, do a little dance

 

 

 Kevin Dowd takes over for Maureen Dowd on Thanksgiving, here:

 

Trump promises a return to common sense and has been given the tools to accomplish it with an electoral mandate and all three branches of government on his side. He cannot squander it. He must not get bogged down in petty disputes and perceived slights. ...

There are things he can do right away to make a difference: close the border, eliminate regulations, end the war on fossil fuels and cancel EV mandates. ...

He should move forward without rancour or grievance, fuelled by the joy of the Trump Shuffle, his robot-like dance that has broken out at UFC fights and across the NFL. I’m going to have the younger members of the family teach it to Maureen on Thanksgiving.

If Joe Biden had won the election, he would surely have commuted the sentence of his son Hunter

 We knew this in June.

 

Talking Points Memo: Poor Hunter Biden lol, and being better, different, more righteous, and more norm-honoring is for chumps like conservatives

The only reason Hunter Biden has been in habitual trouble is because he's a bad boy.

 

Joe Biden more than once pledged not to pardon his son Hunter Biden, but today he did

 The period covered by the pardon goes all the way back to January 1, 2014 for any and all crimes Hunter may have committed, too. You know, like tax crimes. The statute of limitations for tax crimes is ten years.

This wasn't just about the gun crimes.

Meanwhile, 363 people were convicted of tax fraud in 2023, and 63% went to prison. 

It's great to be a Democrat.

 

If only Trump understood anything about the dollar, he wouldn't waste his time embarrassing himself like this

 

The New York Times has obtained an e-mail sent to Pete Hegseth by his mother, and hoo boy, does this fill in the details or what?

 

Inflation under Biden is so bad . . .

 

It's amazing how so-called conservative women will twist themselves into pretzels to defend Pete Hegseth, for example by lowering Brett Kavanaugh to his level

 

 Don’t let the left do to Pete Hegseth what it did to Brett Kavanaugh 

It’s the Brett Kavanaugh show all over again. ... Was Hegseth also in another relationship at the time [2017]? Maybe. But he’s being nominated for secretary of defense, not for the role of our boyfriend or husband. His personal life issues should stay personal. 

As Megyn Kelly pointed out, “Having difficulty in one’s personal relationship, especially after having served two tours — which it’s not uncommon for these combat vets to come back and not be able to navigate their love lives all that well — is much different than being a rapist.”

 

Brett Kavanaugh isn't on his third wife, or his second, and hasn't cheated on his first one, let alone on three and then lied about it by omission. There is no moral equivalence between Pete Hegseth and Brett Kavanaugh whatsoever. 

Hegseth meanwhile served in combat in Iraq in 2005-6, having married wife number one in 2004. That marriage ended in 2009, reportedly due to his infidelity, and he remarried the very next year in 2010, both of which life-altering events occurred while he was executive director of Vets For Freedom, 2007-2012.

In 2012 he was an active duty military instructor in Afghanistan, but evidently for not very long.

In that same year he had started a political action committee called MN PAC, briefly ran for the US Senate from Minnesota starting in February, lost at the Republican Convention in May, and also became CEO of Concerned Veterans for America that year, a job he held until 2015, having become a Fox News contributor the previous year.

It is laughable to suggest that this biography matches a man suffering from the post-traumatic stress of two tours of duty in the Middle East. He looks more like an ambitious climber trying to make the most he can out of what little he's got.

 

These people disgust me, portraying Pete Hegseth as a victim when he's a predator

 

 

 While citizens and the Senate should vet Hegseth’s qualifications to be Secretary of Defense, among the issues assessed should not be this claimed sexual assault.

The media appear, however, determined to parrot the allegation, without even superficial scrutiny, reminiscent of their failings regarding Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. While the admirably restrained Hegseth stays quiet, good citizens should voice strong disapproval of a legacy media whose partisan reporting interferes with the good government processes a democracy requires.

Link.

Pete Hegseth was a drunken bum cheating on his baby mama with a married woman in this incident, that's what this is about, and he neglected to inform Donald Trump about it when he was nominated for Secretary of Defense.

That Hegseth is untrustworthy is only underscored by the fact that he cheated on wife number one, cheated on wife number two with his baby mama, whom he impregnated while still married to wife number two, and cheated on his baby mama with a married woman in this incident.

This disgusting piece of trash is more reprehensible than Donald Trump, if that's even possible.

US Senate Republicans should let it be known now that Hegseth will be slowly roasted in front of the television cameras for all to see.

He cannot be allowed to be a role model to any young man seeking to join the US military, unless you want an army like the sex-obsessed Russian army.

The lying media have taken a phrase from David Plouffe and blown it up into something he did not say, so that Republicans and Democrats both can pretend that everything was Kamala Harris' fault

 David Plouffe said the campaign did not ever have Harris in the lead specifically in late September and early October in their internal polling, and that this was only his recollection about a period one month before the election.

The guy must have had literally hundreds of polls in his head from throughout the campaign.

When we got in, my recollection is some of that [Biden deficit] snapped back, but you know, we were behind. I mean, I think it surprised people because there was these public polls that came out in late September, early October, showing us with leads that we never saw. You know, I mean, it was just basically a race that in the battlegrounds was 46-47, 47-48. So that’s not where we started. We started behind. She was able to climb out.

Here.

Yes, they were behind, big time, in July and August.

But they climbed out indeed, to the point Harris led for the first time by Aug 29 in the public polling averages, and she retook the lead three times in September after losing it in her duel with Trump. 

And Harris kept her Sep 18 lead all the way to Sep 29 when Trump overtook her one last time. 

After that she never got the lead back again.

Should we be surprised Plouffe's internal polling from late September and early October never showed Harris leading?

Of course not. His internal polling showed him exactly what Real Clear's averages were showing us.

Dishonest media are trying to make Harris look as bad as possible by taking Plouffe's comments to mean she was never ahead at any time in the campaign's internal polling.

That's not what Plouffe said.

Harris Campaign's Polls Never Showed Her Leading Trump

Arthur Delaney, HuffPost

 

 

Harris for the win Aug 29

 

Harris for the win Sep 4

Harris for the win Sep 13

Harris for the win Sep 18

CA-45 has been called for the Democrat, while no one is paying attention today

 The margin of victory is 613 votes.

CA-13 remains uncalled, so GOP HOUSE 220 v DEM HOUSE 214.

Real Clear Polling averages showed that Democrats' so-called Blue Wall had already fallen by Oct 18th, just when Gretchen Whitmer rode to the rescue with its liberal governors in tow

 Of course David Plouffe didn't see leads in the internal polling in early Oct. They were disappearing. 

RCP polling averages moved PA to Trump by Sep 30th, MI by Oct 9th, NV by Oct 12th, and WI by Oct 18th.

The Blue Wall was entirely down by Oct 18th, which would be the final outcome, despite MI and WI flipping back to Harris at the end of October.

Democrats were already dead on Oct 18th. They just didn't know it yet when they showed up at it.

 

Oct 17th

 

Oct 18th

So the Harris campaign's David Plouffe saw public polls showing they might be ahead in early October when Real Clear Politics showed that Harris' last lead ended September 29th

. . . there was these public polls that came out in late September, early October, showing us with leads that we never saw.

 

Here. 

 

I'm scratching my head over that, but I think everyone's focusing on a fiction of their own making. Plouffe never said they never saw Harris ahead in their internal polling at all, only during the period in question.

 

In the public polling, Harris went ahead in the averages on August 30th and duked it out with Trump throughout September, with the lead changing hands six times. Plouffe can't be talking about that.

 

It would make sense that their internal polling never showed a lead in early October, because it had already disappeared by then.

 

Nevertheless, Harris had recaptured Michigan and Wisconsin by the end of October in the polling averages, even though Trump retained his lead in the Electoral College.

 

I think Plouffe's memory of early October is just a little faulty.

 

That's all.

 

September 19th Harris ahead with 276

September 29th Trump ahead 281

I don't care if it was expected, core pce inflation is higher in October

 Yeah, and the preferred gauge is core dammit, 2.8%, not the headline 2.3%.

Fed’s preferred inflation gauge rises to 2.3% annually, meeting expectations

We have been range-bound since April, averaging 2.7% year over year for six months. 

The Fed is making ZERO progress, and yet . . .

... traders increased their bets that the Fed would approve another rate cut in December.

 

Mama said always look on the bright side

 

Kamala Harris is the 2028 Democrat frontrunner lol